About
I am a historian of twentieth-century science and technology with a particular focus on the postwar US and its transatlantic connections. My research and teaching are located at the intersection of Science and Technology Studies (STS), the history of labor and work, and Museum studies.
Research: In my dissertation, I look at how, after World War II, American social and behavioral scientists utilized industrial workplaces like the automobile plant, the steel mill, or the technology assembly plant as laboratories to study, on the one hand, the impact of technological and organizational change on individuals, social groups, and (“industrial”) society and, on the other hand, to devise solutions to address its detrimental effects.
Industry-bound social and behavioral scientists styled themselves as knowledge (co)producers and problem solvers. They used their industrial workplace-based laboratories as knowledge production sites and experimentation sites where they could test the effectiveness of their problem-solving interventions.
Knowledge production in the industrial workplace was a collaborative and cooperative process. Social and behavioral scientists enrolled scientific workers (“research assistants”), industrial workers and their family members, supervisory and managerial staff members, and union representatives in their research projects.
Since the W2024 semester, I have been working as a Research Associate for the the University of Michigan's Inclusive History Project (IHP). At the IHP I support the collaborative research efforts of the 1817 Project: Land, Culture, Memory, and Repair which is led by Professor Jay Cook.
During the FA2024 semester, I completed a Rackham Doctoral Intern Fellowship with IHP. I supported the IHP's public engagement efforts on all three U-M campuses. Among other things, I assisted IHP Manager of Engagement, Jennifer Junkermeier-Khan, with setting up the exhibt, In Search of Memories, at U-M Flint's UCEN Gallery and helped to prepare, conduct, and evaluate four IHP class visits.
During the 2022/23 academic year, I was a Graduate Student Research Fellow at U-M's Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies.
My research has been supported by:
Public Scholarship: Drawing on my training in Museum studies and my dissertation research, I am also working on an immersive mini-exhibit called "Playing Automation." The exhibit allows visitors to explore the twentieth-century history of workplace automation through the player piano and musical labor.
During the SU and FA2023 semesters, I served as the Museum Studies Intern at the Detroit Historical Society (DHS). During this time I collaborated with DHS, the Woodbridge Neighborhood Development Corporation (WND), and residents of the Detroit neighborhood, Woodbridge, on a plan to implement a self-guided, virtually-enhanced, and oral history-based historical walking tour of Woodbridge. I was awarded a Rackham Public Scholarship Grant to create the Woodbridge Oral History Archive with DHS, WND, and Woodbridge residents from May 2024 to May 2025, the basis for the Woodbridge History Walking Tour.
My public scholarship has been supported by:
Teaching: Currently, I am working as a Graduate Student Instructor (GSI) for Dr. Michael Hickok's History 231 - Inside the Mind of Terror course.
Previously, I worked for four History and STS-focused courses as a GSI at U-M:
- Hist285/RC SCCI275 – Science, Technology, Medicine, and Society, Prof. John Carson (online and in-person; W2021 and W2022)
- Hist346/AmCult348 – History of American Radicalism, Prof. Howard Brick (in-person; FA2021)
- His101 – What is History?, Prof. Farina Mir & Paulina Alberto (online; FA2020)
In addition to working with my students in the classroom, I am also currently working as a Graduate Student Instructor Consultant for U-M's Center for Research on Learning and Teaching.
My dedication to teaching and student mentorship has been recognized by the History Department by awarding me the John Williams Prize for Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor in U.S. History (FA2022), and U-M's Rackham Graduate School which awarded me an Outstanding Graduate Instructor Award (W2023). I am a proud alumnus of the U-M Graduate Teacher Certificate Program and the Rackham Professional Development DEI Certificate Program.
Service: During the FA2024 semester, I served as Dissertation Writing Group Leader for U-M's Sweetland Center for Writing.
During the 2023/24 academic year, I have been serving as the History Graduate Program Curriculum Data Intern for the History Department's Graduate Curriculum Working Group. In this role, I helped the Working Group make suggestions for reforming the History Department's Graduate Program curriculum.
During the 2022/23 and 2023/24 academic years, I was one of the Coordinating Chairs of the STS Rackham Interdisciplinary Workshop series. In 2022/23, I also served as a peer-mentor in the History Department's DEI program and as Student Representative on the STeMS Speaker Series Committee.
From FA2020 to FA2024, I served as Coordinating Chair for the International Graduate Instructor (IGSI) Caucus of the Graduate Employees' Organization (GEO3550).
In my freetime, I love to run and cycle around Detroit and hit the pitch for Woodbridge FC.
Background: Before coming to U-M, I worked as an Adjunct Assistant Lecturer at the Institute for American Studies at Leipzig University, Germany from 2017 to 2019, and as a Guide for the Germany Close Up program. I received both my B.A. (2012) and M.A. (2016) in American studies from Leipzig University and spent two semesters at Ohio University in 2011 as a BA Plus Fellow.
In 2013/14, I spent a year at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, MI as a Service for Peace Fellow through the Service for Peace program of Action Reconciliation Service for Peace.
During my time in Detroit, the processes and issues that have shaped the Metropolitan Detroit region over the course of the 20th and 21st century started to interest me. One result of these growing interests was Growing Together Detroit, an alternative summer break program I helped setting up with activists from Action Reconciliation Service for Peace, Repair the World (Detroit), and the Eden Gardens Block Club.
Academically, Metropolitan Detroit became my spatial focal point, too. Bringing together intellectual history with urban studies, political economy, and cultural history, I wrote my MA thesis about Detroit philosopher and activist Grace Lee Boggs.
My teaching at Leipzig University revolved around the process of deindustrialization and its social and economic consequences in the Detroit-Windsor region and the North Atlantic, and the history of the 1967 Detroit Riot.
